Library Administration and Organizational Structure

Dr. N.Sundar
Librarian
Thiagarajar College of Preceptors, Madurai.
Library Management &
Organizational Structure

Objectives
 Describe the administration and its functions.
 Discuss the basic principles of management.
 Illustrate the departments and its individual
operations.

Library Administration
 Library Administration
 Lib authority and
committees
 Human Resources (Library
Staffing, Job Analysis &
Evaluation, etc.)
 Library Finance (Budgeting,
Accounting, etc.)
 Acquisition, Circulation,
other sections.
 Library Rules &
Maintenance.
 Records, Reports and
Statistics.

Some Definitions
 According to Theo Haimann, “Administration means
overall determination of policies, setting of major
objectives, the identification of general purposes and
lying down of broad programmes and projects”
 According to Newman, “Administration means guidance,
leadership & control of the efforts of the groups towards
some common goals”

Levels of Management
Top Level of Management
 Top management consists of owner, board of directors, chief
executive officer, managing director and general manager.
These people are not engaged in the day to day operational
activities of the organization. Their activities consist of:
 Determining the objectives and goals of the enterprises
 Framing policies and plans to achieve the goals
 Assembling the resources like money, men, material
 Exercising effective control
 Providing overall leadership

Middle management consists of senior middle management or
functional heads like production manager, finance manager, marketing
manager and junior middle management like branch heads divisional
heads. This level of the management is basically acts as link between top
and low level management.
 Implementing the policies and plan laid down by the top
management
 Preparation of organizational setup in their departments
 Selecting suitable operative and supervisory personnel
 Assigning duties and responsibilities to lower management

Lower Level of Management
It consists of supervisors, superintendents and foreman. They are
direct in touch with technical work and workers. Actual execution
of plans and polices took place at this level. Planning of day to day
work
 Give orders to execute the work
 They arrange material and equipment for workers
 Provide job training to workers
 Maintain proper discipline in section and good relation among the
workers
 Communicate the problems of workers to higher level.

Administrative Functions
 Planning: Well plan is half done
 Organizing: combination of human, physical and
financial resources.
 Staffing: Selection, recruitment, development and
compensation.
 Directing: Process or technique by which instruction
can be carried out as originally planned.
 Controlling: Ensures effective utilization of organizational
resources so as to achieve the planned goals.

Strategic Planning
 Strategic visioning: A proactive view, leading to a plan to
anticipate the future of the library organization.
 Strategic acting: A process of strategically analyzing the
organization’s efforts.
 Strategic planning: A systematic method used by
organizations to adapt to expected changes.
 Core values: A set of common beliefs held by the
organization.

Vision
 A vision statement, as an act of foresight, outlines
what the organization wants to be. It is inspirational;
set within a context of the future, it is timeless, and it
provides clear decision-making criteria.

Goals, Themes, and Directions
Goals are the organization’s
broad aspirations defined in
operational terms, leading to
measurable objectives with
strategies and activities
emanating from them.

Objectives, Initiatives, Pathways, and Strategies
Primary elements are involved in objectives formulation include:
 Clients: Who they are and who they are not (with the potential of converting those who are
not).
 Services: What new services are needed, which existing ones should be retained, and which
should be deleted.
 Personnel resources: What professional support skills are needed to provide identified
services.
 Technological resources: What resources can be assessed and what technology is required.
 Financial resources: What the objectives cost.
 Community responsibilities: The library’s obligations as a social institution.

Steps in Making Decisions
If the organization’s goals are clear, the important step in decision making is developing
alternatives for solutions to identified problems or issues.

Factors in Making Decisions
Several factors influence decision making for libraries and
other information centers. Selection from among
alternatives is made on the basis of:
 Experience.
 Experimentation.
 Research and analysis.

Understanding the Strategic plan failure & Success
According to Germano, M. A., & Stretch-Stephenson, S. (2012)
 Poor employee engagement;
 Poor communication;
 Lack of clarity in terms of goals and expected outcomes;
 Inadequate leadership development within organizations;
 Speed and adaptability when refinements are required;
 Slow decision-making;
 Resource inadequacy;
 Little attention to customer needs; and
 Non-alignment across functional areas.

Understanding the Strategic plan failure & Success
This requires libraries to address huge questions like:
 Who is (not) using my library?
 What are they (not) using?
 What moments of truth prevent patrons from using the library again?
 What are they using instead?
 How do they get information when the library is unavailable?
 How much do they value information?
 How has the library improved patrons’ lives in quantifiable ways?
 Is my library capable of providing the information patrons need?
 What do my patrons need from a library? Want?
 What or who is my competition?

Functions of Administration Departments
 Process of paper work & information for internal &
external support.
 Proper communication to make all the staff to aware
what’s going on.
 Facilities & maintenance of the overall library
functions.

Library and its departments
 Circulation
 Reference Services
 Technical Services
 Periodical (or) Serials control
 Acquisition Unit
 Copyright Services
 Research Sections
 Information Services
 Digital Resources
 Audio Visual Sections
 Back-Volumes/Newspaper
 Communication & Outreach
 Quality Assurance
 etc.

Overview
All organizations require some sort of structure.
Organizational Structure is a mechanism to divide all the
necessary tasks among the workers, and to guarantee that
workers perform those tasks in the right order and at the
right time.

Overview
• Consider, for example, US Library of Congress, largest library in the world.
• Established in 1800 with an appropriation of $5,000. Library’s first
collection consisted of 740 books and 3maps; its first librarian did double
duty as clerk of the House of Representatives.
• Today’s Library of Congress, by contrast, has a collection of more than
147 million items occupying approximately 838 miles of bookshelves
and adds more than 22,000 items each day with more than 3,500
permanent full-time employees, the library requires an elaborated
organizational frame-work.
• http://www.loc.gov/static/portals/about/documents/OrgChart-
all_93018.pdf

Methods of Departmentalization
Organizations have traditionally established their departments using
five methods: by function, by territory, by product, by customer
and by process.
One example
Function: In business, most common organizational design is the
functional structure. In libraries too, this methods of
departmentalization is widespread, with subunits handling the
functions of circulation, reference, acquisition, cataloguing,
management, and etc.
LIS 602 Resource Management in Library & Information Centers

Power and Authority
Words power and authority are sometimes used interchangeably,
but in truth these terms are not synonymous. A person may
possess power without necessarily possessing authority.
Authority is a supervisor’s legitimate right to direct subordinate
workers and is usually accepted by those subordinates.
LIS 602 Resource Management in Library & Information Centers

Source: https://www.library.qut.edu.au/about/management/documents/ORG_LibReportingStructure_20170502.pdf

Reference
 Moran, BB, Stueart, RD, & Morner, C (2013). Library and Information
Center Management, 8th ed. ISBN: 9781598849899
 Germano, M. A., & Stretch-Stephenson, S. (2012). Strategic value
planning for libraries. The Bottom Line, 25(2), 71-88.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/08880451211256405
 Lovely Professional University:
http://ebooks.lpude.in/library_and_info_sciences/DLIS/Year_1/DLI
S003_LIBRARY_ADMINISTRATION_AND_MANAGEMENT.pdf

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